Filling envelopes

Susan and I have both had fairly hectic finishes to the year and have been struggling to get to the finish line  with our third collaborative book.  You may recall way back when, we began the books by selecting a shared array of papers and making thirteen envelopes each - using the same papers and the same sizes. So we had a set of matching envelopes each and our task was to create the work within them in our own ways.

This has been another approach in our collaborative efforts so far - each time we set slightly different rules, and collaborate in slightly different ways.  For whatever reason, this time around I was fairly devoid of thoughts about what to do next, and literally left the envelopes in their package for a couple of months.

Together we determined that we should have them finished by mid-December, and as you all know, its gets crazy and random this time of year, so we figured we really had to focus soon!

Our trip to NZ gave me an opportunity to ponder a story that might help hold the disparate envelopes together in some way.

Susan and I had planned a trip to Brisbane on Friday so we could look at beautiful bookworks, then decided NO, we have to DO something not just look at others' works. We thought we would work together in one of our studios for the day, but then decided that neither of us was sure enough of what we might need to take to the others' place to work with that instead, we would work separately on Friday and get together late in the afternoon to compare progress. And we did.

This flexibility is one of the things I love most about our collaboration - we aren't thrashing ourselves to stick to timelines and guidelines; we understand that each other might need some time to work things thru; but we are both committed to producing the work for ourselves and the other person, and we love to get together and share.

As ever, we were approaching things similarly but differently and the two 'books' will look and feel quite different, yet each will feel like us I think, and will share the common foundation of the envelopes.

Here's a few glimpses of where I got to by Saturday.

I think we are both finished now and will do our usual 'get the books together' thing sometime during the week I hope, and shall then be able to reveal the fuller story...